


In A Hundred Lifetimes (I’d Find You And I’d Choose You)

by ashtxns



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-19 23:36:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7382095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashtxns/pseuds/ashtxns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It happens to him and he’s alright with that. But ever since Keith started appearing in the other versions, Lance can’t help but think that the universe is trying to tell him something.</p><p>or, Lance travels to different versions of his life. The only constant is Keith.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In A Hundred Lifetimes (I’d Find You And I’d Choose You)

**Author's Note:**

> i'm still getting the hang of writing them so i'm super sorry if this is ooc!!
> 
> anyway!! this is inspired by a fic in the star wars fandom but i could never make it justice but! i still hope you enjoy this! :')

It’s something he’s always been able to do. Lance doesn’t know how or why – all he knows is he can. Whenever he woke up in a different life, he’d always know that it would be just that. _Different_. It’d feel slightly off. One time he woke up in Cárdenas at his mother’s family place, instead of his hometown. One time, he had three brothers instead of three sisters. One time, he was an only child.

It’s never on purpose and he doesn’t know when it just decides to happen. Some nights, it just happens. He’ll wake up in another college, instead of the Garrison. He’ll wake up in a different life, go back to sleep, and wake up in his own life again.

-

When he wakes up, Lance immediately knows he’s in another version of his life. The bed is nice, comfortable, unlike his bed at the Castle, so he must be in a universe where he’s got his own place. He’s about to open his eyes, inspect the place, when something behind him moves and he freezes, becoming acutely aware of another person in the bed which is. Huh. This is new. Before this, Lance has always woken up alone.

“Sorry if I woke you,” a drowsy voice from behind him mumbles and then the person gets up and Lance only gets a quick look at them before they’re disappearing into an adjoined room, but the glance of the hair was enough for him to silently panic. And, really, Lance has woken up in a lot of weird versions of life, but this has to take the fucking cake. Because _Keith_ , of all people, was in bed with him and Lance can’t think of any scenario where Keith would willingly sleep in the same bed with Lance. But if they slept in the same bed together, then that must mean something, right? And if Lance doesn’t recognize the bedroom, then that means that this place is… _their_ place. As in, their shared place. As in, Keith and…him? _Together_?

But he doesn’t have any time to debate over this because Keith is coming back into the room. Keith, who starts smiling when he sees that Lance is awake. Keith, who… _what_?

“Morning,” he says, smiling lazily, and, wow, Lance has never noticed before how attractive Keith’s morning voice was, still laced with sleepiness, and then Keith is leaning in to kiss him. And Lance jerks back, eyes wide.

Keith doesn’t seem to take it personal, though, because he only rolls his eyes. “Oh, c’mon,” he says. “I brushed my teeth for you.” And then cradles Lance’s cheek in his hand. And kisses him. Right on the mouth. “I’m meeting Shiro for practice,” he says, straightening up. “You can go back to sleep if you want, it’s still early.”

Lance belatedly realizes that Keith is waiting for an answer, hovering by the bed, and Lance only nods once, quickly. “I’m gonna do that,” he says. “Go back to sleep, I mean.”

Keith looks at him funnily. “You okay?” he asks.

Lance nods again. “Just had a weird dream,” he tries smiling and prays it doesn’t come off as shaky. “Say hi to Shiro from me.”

Keith nods and then he’s grabbing his jacket and is out the door in a matter of seconds and Lance is left staring at the closed door. He brings his fingers up to his lips which are still tingling from the kiss. “Huh,” he says. He goes back to sleep.

-

When he wakes up this time, he’s back in his own life and he stares at the ceiling for a few minutes, trying to calm his nerves. “Just another slip-up,” he mutters to himself. “Nothing’s changed between you and Keith.”

Still, the first thing he does after getting dressed, before joining the others at breakfast, is finding Keith on the training deck. And it’s _weird_ , and how hasn’t he noticed it before, _God_ , but he seems to have Keith’s daily routine memorized and that realization leaves him with a funny feeling in his gut.

He reaches the training deck just as Keith is exiting it and his feet seem take a few steps back on its own accord when he sees him. Keith only raises a brow. “You’re up late,” he comments. He watches him closer. “What’s up with _you_?”

“Had a weird dream,” Lance says, echoing his words from the other universe.

“Okay,” Keith nods. “See you, then.”

Lance can’t seem to look Keith in the eyes during breakfast.

-

He’d never put too much thought into his little _ability_ or whatever. It happens to him and he’s alright with that. But ever since Keith started appearing in the other versions, Lance can’t help but think that the universe is trying to tell him something.

-

Lance wakes up and barely has time to register the overwhelming nausea before he’s throwing the blankets back and rushing into the bathroom, reaching the toilet seconds before his gut decides to violate him.

“God,” he groans, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and resting his forehead on the cold toilet lid. “What happened.”

“You drank too much last night, that’s what happened,” a bemused voice answers from the doorway and Lance weakly lifts his head, squinting. He recognizes Keith and his stomach does another flip, this time unrelated to the previous encounter. _So, Keith’s in this one too_ , he thinks.

Seems as if lifting his head was enough to upset his stomach once again as he finds himself hanging over the toilet, coughing up the, hopefully, last remains of whatever happened the night before. A hand is rubbing circles on his back and it’s soothing, and Lance thinks, _I could get used to this._

Not the throwing up part, though.

“I tried to stop you,” Keith says and Lance slowly lifts his head, sees that Keith is just barely smiling, and narrows his eyes. “No judging,” he says, voice raspy. “I’m in misery.”

Keith’s hand stops the movement on his back and Lance finds himself missing it, but then Keith is getting up, holding his hand out to Lance. “You up for breakfast? You need that.”

Lance makes an unpleasant sound at the mention of food, but takes Keith’s hand nonetheless. A sort of electricity runs through his fingers when Keith tightens the hold and Lance wonders in what kind of universe he landed where they both fell for each other.

He makes it down the stairs with no problem. The house, apartment, whatever – it’s nice. He never thought he’d see a universe, version, where he and _Keith_ would share a place together, but hey – there’s a first time for everything?

“So, uh, what happened last night?” Lance asks after he’s managed to keep a good portion of his breakfast down. (And Keith is an _amazing_ cook, who would’ve _thought_.)

Keith snorts into his coffee. “You don’t remember?”

“I don’t remember anything,” Lance grumbles.

“We went over to Shiro and Allura’s place and you were mad so you decided to just get wasted.”

Lance can’t even comment on _Shiro and Allura what_ because, “Why was I mad?”

Keith scratches his neck, avoiding his gaze. And – is he _nervous_? That’s certainly a new one. “We had a fight,” he shrugs. “It wasn’t anything serious, though.”

“Oh.” Lance doesn’t know why his stomach plummeted at hearing that they’d had a fight. They fight all the time in their universe, so why was he so upset by this? Because, he thought, that there were no problems between them in these different universes. He thought they were happy.

“Did I, uh, say anything hurtful to you?” Lance asks quietly. Keith’s eyes widen in surprise. “Because I, uh –“ Lance rushes out. “I can be pretty hot-headed, so if I said anything to upset you, then. I’m sorry. Really.”

“You didn’t,” Keith says softly. “It’s all good.”

Lance nods. “Good.” He tries a smile. Keith smiles back.

The rest of the day passes with no incident. Lance busies himself by walking around the apartment, inspecting every room, while Keith was gone at work. (And Keith had a _job_ , at an _Academy_ , which meant they were both _older_ , and what kind of universe was _this_?)

They have dinner when Keith gets back. It’s quiet, and normal, and Lance’s heart aches when he realizes _he wants this._ He wants the normalcy, the knowledge that someone was coming back to _him_ , the familiarity, the feeling of _home_. They goof around when they’re brushing their teeth later, waggling their eyebrows when they catch each other watching in the mirror and when they settle into bed, when Keith turns the lights off and he presses a soft kiss to Lance’s lips, Lance suddenly realizes he doesn’t want to leave this universe.

-

“Shit,” he whispers when he wakes up in his own bed at the Castle, alone. “Shit, shit, fucking shit.”

He corners Keith that afternoon, after he’s spend the whole day roaming the Castle. “Let’s be friends!” he says, a shaky smile on his lips. Keith stares at him.

“…Friends?” he asks.

Lance grits his teeth together. “Yes. Friends. Like me and Hunk and Pidge are? You and Shiro? Although I still do not know how you two know each other since you were at the Academy and Shiro was off on his mission, but then you left and –“ He stops his rambling when Keith holds up a hand.

“If we’re friends, can I tell you to shut up?”

Lance frowns. “Don’t you do that anyway?”

Keith shrugs, smirking slightly. “Okay. We’re friends. This kinda pretending-to-dislike-each-other thing was getting on my nerves, to be honest.” He has started walking away and Lance stares after him for a few seconds before catching up to him.

“Pretending? Why were you pretending?” He asks, falling into step beside him.

Keith only shrugs. “Pretending what?”

“C’mon, we’re friends now, you can tell me,” Lance grins. He wonders if their friendship already allows for him to bump their shoulders together. He feels like he’s testing waters here.

“Why were _you_ pretending?” Keith asks.

Now it’s Lance’s turn to shrug. “The truth? I was jealous. You were top of the Academy, man!”

Keith ducks his head a little and Lance can see a faint blush creeping up his neck. He bites his lip, doesn’t wanna comment on it, doesn’t wanna ruin this – new thing they’ve got going on. Hey, this was the longest they went without breaking out into an argument.

“I never had a reason to hate you,” Keith says slowly. “I just went along with whatever you were doing.”

“Oh,” says Lance, frowning. “Huh.”

“What?” Keith looks at him.

Lance grins. “Nothing,” he says, bumping their shoulders together. He feels like they’ve reached that part already. “Friend.”

-

He goes to sleep that night, silently hoping that the universe he’ll wake up in will feature Keith. He doesn’t know how or why he went from being weirded out from waking up next to Keith, to enjoying those moments together, where there’s no threat of any evil aliens attacking or, hell if he knows, Allura threatening to handcuff them together for another team-bonding exercise. But the thought of waking up next to Keith, in a shared house or apartment, leaves Lance with a funny feeling. Because somewhere, out there, _is_ a universe where he and Keith fall in love, there is a universe where Lance settles down with someone and as boring as it may sound to his younger self, that’s all he wants right now. And who would’ve thought that Keith would be the person Lance falls in love with.

-

He wakes up to sunlight streaming through the windows, an arm around his waist, and – crying. Huh. That one’s new.

He blinks his eyes open, waiting for them to adjust to the sunlight, when Keith – and of course it’s Keith, who else would it be – tightens the arm around Lance’s waist. “It’s your turn,” he mumbles against Lance’s neck.

“Okay,” is all Lance says before he untangles himself from Keith and gets out of bed. He takes one last look at him, at Keith with the blanket tangled around his legs, his hands both grasping at the pillow as if to make up for the lack of presence Lance just left. His heart tugs in his chest. All he wants to do is crawl back into bed with him and spend the whole day cuddled up – but. Someone’s crying. Right.

His feet seem to know where to go and he walks through a nicely decorated, well-lit part of the house before he’s standing in the open doorway of what could only be described as a nursery. His heart sinks when he realizes that this could only mean one thing. “Oh, quiznak,” he mumbles, slowly shuffling forward until he’s at the source of the crying. A baby – ten month old? at the least – is standing up on its little legs, grabbing the barriers of the crib for a stronger hold. It – he? She? Lance muses – stares up at him, the crying now subsided to a low whimpering. The baby holds his hands out when it sees Lance and Lance picks it up, cooing. “Hey, you,” he says softly. “What’s got you all worked up?”

The baby grasps at his shirt and Lance smiles, rocking it back and forth, when his eyes catches sight of the mobile above the crib and he steps closer, squinting at a small sign. “Ellie, huh,” he mumbles, looking back down at the baby’s face. “Your name’s Ellie.”

The baby stares back up at him.

“You’re…my baby,” Lance says slowly. “You’re my daughter. I have – a daughter. With. Keith.” He takes a deep breath. “Don’t freak out, Lance, you got a baby in your arms.”

“Hey,” Keith’s voice interrupts his thoughts and he turns to face the doorway. Keith’s watching them, a smile playing on his lips. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Lance says, a little too quickly. He coughs. “Everything’s fine. We’re fine.”

Keith steps forward and holds his hands out for Ellie and Lance doesn’t let the relieve show on his face when he hands her over. “She’s grown so much,” Keith whispers, smiling down at her.

 _I wouldn’t know_ , Lance thinks. He says, “She has.”

Keith looks at him. “Breakfast?” he asks, turning towards the doorway.

“I’ll be right down,” Lance replies, smiling. Keith nods and, only when Lance’s sure he’s gone down the stairs, does he shut the door and lets himself slide down against it. He shakily breathes out and runs a hand through his hair. His breath catches in his throat when the sunlight casts off something on his left finger and he slowly holds his hand up, already expecting the worst. “Quiznak,” he whispers when he sees the wedding band on his finger.

He knows he should go downstairs, can hear Keith talking to Ellie, knows that Keith is probably wondering where he is – but he can’t do it. He makes his way over to the bedroom in a haze and crawls into bed, shutting his eyes, and desperately hopes for sleep to overtake him.

-

Lance would be lying if he said he wasn’t attracted to Keith. Because despite their stupid rivalry at the beginning, despite becoming friends, despite Lance flirting with every pretty female they encountered – he _was_ attracted to Keith. But over the course of the last few weeks – over the course of experiencing different versions of his life with _Keith,_ Lance has realized that his silly attraction to Keith had turned into…something more. Something above a crush, but it wasn’t quite love yet. Something in between. And that something made Lance’s knees go all weak when he saw Keith smile – just a tiny ghost of a smile on his lips – and that something made Lance’s stomach go all fuzzy when he woke up alone in his bed and realized that he wouldn’t mind sharing it with Keith, that something –

Oh, screw that. He’d developed feelings for Keith. Real feelings which went beyond _Hey, you’re pretty and I’m pretty, wanna make out?_

Between waking up next to Keith in different universes, between becoming friends with him and actually getting to know him in their universe, Lance has started to fall for Keith.

“Well, shit,” he says.

-

He wakes up to someone – Keith, he reminds himself – pressing a kiss to his neck. “You fell asleep,” Keith mumbles when he notices that Lance is awake. “Allura picked Ellie up. We got the afternoon off.”

 _I’m still here_ , Lance realizes.

“Y-you don’t have work?” he manages to get out because Keith is still kissing his neck and _wow_ if it were any other situation –

Keith pulls back and raises his brows. “It’s a Sunday.”

“Oh,” says Lance.

Keith pulls back entirely and Lance straightens up, leaning against the headboard. “Are you sure you’re okay?” Keith asks, worry on his face. “Are you getting sick?”

 _Yes_ , he thinks. “No,” he says. “I’m just tired, I suppose.”

Keith nods in understanding, cracking a smile. “Happens when you got a nine-month old kid.”

 _So he was close, then_.

“You wanna go back to sleep? But you need to eat,” Keith says, nibbling at his lower lip and Lance grabs the sheets a bit tighter. Would be a bit awkward to jump Keith just because Lance couldn’t control his hormone-driven tendencies.

“I gotta talk to you,” he says instead. He knew this was coming, that this was supposed to happen, before all this even started. Keith looks at him.

“About?” he asks slowly.

Lance takes a deep breath. _Now or never._ “I’m not the Lance you know,” he starts. “I mean, you obviously do know me, but I’m not – I mean –“ he takes another breath. “I travel. Through universes. Yeah, yeah, the multiverse exists, it’s all super cool, but what I’m saying is – I’m not your Lance.” He holds his left hand up, showing the wedding band which makes Keith immediately look down at his identical band on his finger. “I’m not your husband,” Lance finishes.

Lance is surprised, to say the least, when Keith chuckles. “You told me this would happen,” he says. “Not you, the other you – my Lance. Said this would happen one day, maybe even more often.” He looks at Lance. “Has this happened more than once?”

“Uh, this morning,” Lance says. “And other universes, but I doubt it was the same you.”

Keith hums and leans against the headboard, next to Lance. He plays with his wedding band. “He – the other you – _my_ you said you’d only need to go back to sleep again and you’d wake up in your own universe.” He looks at Lance. “Is that right?”

Lance nods. “That’s how it works.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You just did.”

Keith groans. “Oh, c’mon,” he says and Lance chuckles. “Go ahead,” says Lance.

“In your universe – what are we like? Are we, uh, together?” A blush is creeping up Keith’s neck and Lance has to bite on his tongue to stop his smile.

He runs a hand through his hair. “We’re a lot younger. We’re actually in space,” he grins at Keith’s expression. “Yeah, I know. We’re defending the universe and all. It’s pretty cool.”

“You’re shitting me,” Keith says.

Lance shakes his head. “It’s all true. Shiro is there, and Allura, and Pidge and Hunk and Coran – they’re all there.”

“And here we are, living boring lives.”

“Oh, come on, you’re married! With a kid! That’s not boring.” Lance bumps their shoulders together and Keith laughs, shrugging. “It’s not boring,” he says softly, with a smile on his lips. “Not at all.”

Lance clears his throat. “We’re not together, in my universe,” he says, then falls silent. “We’re friends,” he says slowly. “But – I wanna be more than that.” He whispers the last part, but knows Keith has heard him by the look on his face.

“What’s holding you back?” Keith asks.

Lance shrugs. “I don’t know how you’d react,” he chuckles awkwardly. “In this universe we’re fine, but what if – you don’t like me like _that_ in my universe? It scares me.”

“Hey,” Keith nudges his shoulder and Lance looks up to face him. “I don’t know what I’m like in your universe, but…I don’t think you should be scared. Just tell him. Me.” He pulls a face. “This is weird.”

Lance grins. “You think I should?”

Keith nods. “Yeah. And if it doesn’t work out, then you know there’re all these other universes where we’re together.”

“Maybe we’re not meant to be together in my universe,” Lance says quietly.

Keith smiles sadly. “There’s always one, isn’t there?”

Lance nods, running a hand down his face. “You don’t say,” he mutters.

“You wanna go back to sleep?” Keith asks. He nods to the windows. “The sun’s almost down.”

“Yeah,” Lance says. “I think I’m gonna do that.” He turns to Keith. “Tell my other – the other Lance, God, this is weird – tell him hi from me. I’d never thought I’d be jealous of myself.”

Keith grins. “I will. It was nice to meet you, Other Lance.”

-

When Lance wakes up, he knows what to do. He passes Pidge on his search through the Castle, who stops once they notice Lance. “Hey, you’ve been holed up in your room all day, you good?”

Lance only nods, smiling shakily. “Sure, sure, listen, have you seen Keith?”

Something dawns on Pidge’s face. “Training deck,” they say. _Of fucking course_ , thinks Lance and manages to get out a “Thank you!” before taking off.

“Keith!” he yells when he reaches the training deck. Keith is at the other side, fighting against the Gladiator and Lance groans. “Turn that thing off!” he shouts and. The Gladiator actually turns itself off. “Huh,” says Lance.

Keith frowns, then spots Lance. “What do you want?” he asks as soon as Lance’s reached him. “I was in the middle of training.”

“You do that every day, you’re not missing anything,” Lance waves him off, excitedly rocking back and forth on his heels.

Keith watches him in confusion. “You okay?”

Lance nods, grinning. His heart is thumping in his chest and he feels like he just ran a marathon. “I need to talk to you, actually.”

Keith nods at him to go ahead. Lance takes a breath. “I haven’t told anyone this, but I travel in my sleep. I can travel to different universes and lately I’ve been traveling to universes where you and I are together as in _together,_ and it made me realize that I like you, as in _like-like_ , as in fifth grade like and oh my quiznak, Keith, I’m sorry if I ruin anything by saying this, but I’m so in love with you and I don’t wanna live in a universe where you don’t know.”

He stares at Keith. Keith stares back. “Say something,” Lance says quietly, the small amount of hope he had left slowly dying.

“You travel?” Keith repeats. “Through the universes? In your _sleep_?”

Lance’s face falls. “That’s what you got from that?” he asks incredulously.

“What, the multiverse is a very fascinating theory!” Keith protests.

“Keith, Keith, did you not hear what I said,” Lance rushes out. “I’m in love with you, I confessed my _love_ for you and all you do is go on about the multiverse!”

Keith shrugs him off. “Yeah, you’re in love with me, but the _multiverse_ –“ He falls silent. He stares at Lance. He blinks. “You’re in love with me,” he says finally.

Lance breathes out. “That’s what I’ve been saying, yeah.”

“Oh,” says Keith. Then, “Well, come here,” and grabs his shirt collar and drags him closer. Their lips meet and Lance’s eyes slip shut and his hands find Keith’s waist and he thinks, _So it was that easy then._

-

He still travels. It’s not as frequent as it used to be and it’s not every night, but when he does travel, he finds himself yearning to be back in his own universe. Because, while meeting different versions of Keith is entertaining and it’s interesting how their lives in another universe is going, it’s nice to wake up in his own bed with Keith by his side. When that happens, he presses himself closer to Keith and smiles.

Yeah, the universe was really trying to tell him something.


End file.
